50 Best Quotes about the Systems and Processes

Quotes about the systems: “The system is not working for me.” “I’m not a part of the system.” “The system is rigged against me.” Are these statements true for you? If so, you’re not alone. Millions of people around the world feel like they’re being left behind by the system. In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the most thought-provoking quotes about the system, and what they mean for us.

Quotes about the System

“The system is rigged against us.”

“The system is not broken, it’s fixed.”

“The system is not perfect, but it’s the best we have.”

“The system is not perfect, but it works.”

“The system is not working for us, it’s working against us.”

“Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass.” ― Grace Lee Boggs

A bad system will beat a good person every time – W. Edwards Deming

“You cannot manage what you cannot measure” – Peter Drucker.

The systems are not sexy – but they really DO drive everything we do! – Carrie Wilkerson

“Emergence of ever more complex structures seems to be programmed into the nature of our evolving cosmos.” ― Alex M. Vikoulov

“Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change” ― Frank Herbert

Related: Quotes about Systems and Processes

Quotes about System Development

“It is always easier to destroy a complex system than to selectively alter it.” ― Roby James, Commitment

“Small differences in your [system] performance can lead to large differences in your results” – Brian Tracy

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing” – W. Edwards Deming

“The system is not just, it’s not fair, it never has been and it never will be. That’s the way it is.”

“Emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies.” – Adrienne Maree Brown

“I was fortunate when I worked at the DeSoto Solar Farm that I had already seen some of the dangerous problems at other solar power systems I had worked at.” ― Steven Magee

“ask . . . what it is about all-embracing ‘systems’ of thought that leads inexorably to all-embracing ‘systems’ of rule.” ― Tony Judt, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century

“When we help another person, we are helped. If we harm another, we harm ourselves. Perhaps harder to grasp—if we harm ourselves, we harm the whole universe.” ― Rachel Wooten

“Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.” – Herbert Simon

“We can’t impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.” ― Donella H. Meadows

Quotes about Systems and Processes

“The system is not designed for people like me.”

“The system is designed to keep people in their place.”

“The system is designed to oppress and exploit marginalized people.”

“Watch the little things; a small leak will sink a great ship” – Benjamin Franklin

“At its core, a fully functioning business is basically a set of systems and processes”. – John Jantsch

“All wealth is based upon systems”. – Dan Kennedy.

But no one can praise Roosevelt for doing this and then insist that he restored our traditional political and economic systems to their former vitality. – John T. Flynn

Building technical systems involves a lot of hard work and specialized knowledge: languages and protocols, coding and debugging, testing and refactoring. – Jesse James Garrett

“Organize around business functions, not people. Build systems within each business function. Let systems run the business and people run the systems. People come and go but the systems remain constant” – Michael Gerber

“In order for any business to succeed, it must first become a system so that the business functions exactly the same way every time down to the last detail” – Rick Harshaw

“For a business to survive and thrive, 100 percent of all the systems must be functioning and accountable. For example: An airplane is a system of systems. If an airplane takes off and the fuel system fails, there often is a crash. The same thing happens in business. It’s not the systems that you know about that are the problem – it’s the systems you are not aware of that cause you to crash”. – Robert Kiyosaki

Quotes about Systems Thinking

“There is no substitute for natural systems.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.” ― Nadeem Aslam

“The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.” -Yasutani Roshi

“There was a cover-up of badly built solar photovoltaic systems when I worked in the industry.” ― Steven Magee

“The incorrect construction of solar photovoltaic systems was a feature when I worked in the field.” ― Steven Magee

As a rule, software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications. – Dave Parnas

“Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change”. – Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

“We can’t impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.” ― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Emergence is the outcome of the synergies of the parts; it is about non-linearity and self-organization and we often use the term “emergence” to describe the outcome of things interacting together.” – Leyla Acaroglu

“I always look to the system for a solution. If a challenge arises I use a system correction before I look for a people correction. I use a system solution in my innovation rather than a people solution. I follow the system exactly until a new system is introduced. I suggest system improvements at my first opportunity”. – Brad Sugars

Systems Quotes Business

“A bad system will beat a good person every time.” – W. Edwards Deming

“A system is never the sum of its parts, it’s the product of their interaction.” – Russell Ackoff

“Reality is made up of circles but we see straight lines.” – Peter Senge.

“Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for looking at inter-relationships rather than things, for seeing ‘patterns of change’ rather than ‘static snapshots.” – Peter Senge

“Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem, which prevents or distracts one from the harder and longer-term task of solving the real problem.” – Donella H. Meadows

“If you do not understand your role in the problem, it is difficult to be part of the solution.” – David Peter Stroh

“Synthesis is about understanding the whole and the parts at the same time, along with the relationships and the connections that make up the dynamics of the whole.” – Leyla Acaroglu

“Think of these business systems as bridges. Bridges that will provide a path for you to cross safely …to financial freedom. . . Let’s take a dentist. A dentist spends years in school learning to become a self-contained system. You, as the client, get a toothache. Go see your dentist. He fixes your teeth. You pay and go home. You’re happy and then tell all of your friends about your great dentist.

In most cases, the dentist can do the entire job by himself. The problem is that if the dentist goes on vacation, so does his income. True business owners can go on vacation forever because they own a system, not a job. If the business owner is on vacation, the money still comes in”. – Robert Kiyosaki

“Everything affects everything else in one way or another. Whether you are aware of that or not does not change the fact that this is what is happening. That’s why I say a business is a system. This systems perspective reminds us that this is what is going on. And when you see it this way, you can manage your business better. We appreciate, for example, that any action will reverberate throughout the entire company. This causes you to pay more attention to what you do, and learn the right lessons from your experience.” – John Woods